Because Chocolate can't get you pregnant...

I found this pic on Pinterest via - http://piccsy.com/2012/04/picc-dxslyngy5/

And now I see I've gotten your attention... =)

You're back. How've you been?

We seem to have gotten a little traffic around these parts and I thought, Well if you want to keep them happy & sated you have to post, so without further delay--



With the Fourth of July is right around the corner I've been inspired to write a theme-post.  Of course the I get my inspiration from my neighbor's on Pleasant street - because for the last week or so they've been gearing up for the big day, making sure to "practice" at all hours so they'll be able to get it just right when the time comes. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I hear a barrage of bottle rockets and firecrackers going off at 3 in the morning.

They're celebrating the country they love so much, rockets red flare and all. Then of course you have to also love what it does to the neighborhood dogs -- and they will not be overlooked making sure to get in on the act too, all in response to all the blessed late night fireworks. Who doesn't enjoy being woken from a deep sleep scared silly in the middle of the night?

                Oh, that's right,
      ME and my sleeping family!


Don't get me wrong, I've been known enjoy a good holiday celebration as much as the next gal. But I've also come to the conclusion that the 4th was a whole lot more fun when I was a kid. For me the entire staring at the pretty fireworks until I get a kink in my neck while lying around on a blanket on the ground, at dark, while being a mosquito's dinner really doesn't hold the same appeal that it once did. I mean really, I hate to say it, but if you've seen one firework show, you've kinda seen them all.

It's thinking about these things that bring back some of my own childhood Fourth of July memories -- Oh where to start...

In my family celebrating the 4th was very important. For my Dad it was top of the list, like Christmas was to Mom - to help you better understand, my Mom lives for Christmas, and that is where I'll leave that one, for now...

I should also preface that because of said importance my Dad went to great lengths to prepare to celebrate the 4th ensuring everything was just right. They'd all start early.


While my Mom would craft her potato salad and Gramma her famous baked beans. my brother, sister and I would break into the sparklers (the dangerous metal ones - talk about no parental supervision needed - if you really knew my family you'd bust a gut because we are very accident prone, and have very bad luck with fire) and those smelly and atrociously dirty "snakes."

For my Dad, no Independence Day celebration would be complete without doing some type of barbecue or rotisserie meat and seeing that we were from Illinois, he needed farm fresh sweet-corn too.

And by early afternoon the menu would have been executed, so of course we ate. I mean nothing said "We love America" more in our house than having to sit around in the sweltering mid-day July heat with a belly so full even walking became difficult... well except maybe recounting the details about the annual sojourn to Indiana to procure the fireworks that would be used later that night - but only 


AFTER we made the trek to 'the spot' - a place far enough away and "high" enough up that we could see several firework shows all at once, which of course was no small feat, because, I grew up in Illinois, the heartland of flat, flat and flat some-more terrain.

  

So after enduring, I mean ENJOYING the firework shows put on by the local municipalities we would then drag our bug bitten, crooked necked carcasses back into the un-air conditioned car for the ride home. By this time it was late-late and the only thing that kept us kids going was feeding off of my dad's enthusiasm about his "show".


In all honesty they were pretty cool. He would try a bunch of everything that he'd bought, and that they'd thrown into the bags for him - man did he ever live for those freebies that they'd give him.


Some years the fireworks he did would be so great, and other times no so much -- I seem to recall on more than one occasion my little sister getting caught on fire because of some type or another that went wild and strayed on him but she lived and only wound up some really holey clothes. My Dad even had a dog that shared his love of fireworks SO much she'd actually tried to catch and retrieve them for him. It sounds kind of scary, but she thought it was the BEST GAME EVER!


Since having our children we've started to create our own traditions for big holidays, typically re-creating something along the lines of what we had during youth. But this is one that we haven't been able to touch. It has been a few years since we've lived near my family or been back to visit over the Fourth of July. I am pretty sure that not much has changed and I am sure for my Dad that when the day comes his neighbors will be in for a "treat" later on in the evening, but I don't think he needs to practice -- he's been doing it for years.




Happy Independence Day America and all you 4th of July-ers out there... be safe, enjoy yourselves - and please remember your neighbors =)






'Til next time,




StraightA's